Picture this. You’re on your Mac, and this website is asking you to enter particular characters from your password. But your password is 50 characters of 1Password-generated gibberish; how are you supposed to find the 5th, 14th, and 32nd characters without losing your place? Wouldn’t it be amazing if 1Password could make it just a little bit easier for you?

Picture this. You’ve just found out about the great Multiple Vaults feature and excitedly set up a vault to share with your family. Awesome. But sometimes, secondary vault passwords need to be changed. Wouldn’t it be cool if 1Password made it easy for you to do that?

As of today, it can. And it does. You’ll find these and other new convenience and security features in 1Password 5.4 for Mac: The Convenience Edition, ready to download right now in the Mac App Store and from our website. Read on for the lovely details, then sally forth and download—for the low, low price of free, if you’ve already bought 1Password 5 for Mac.

Large type option now available for passwords

Easily enter specific characters from your password with the new Large Type feature. Selecting this option for your password will display it in big, friendly, colour-coded letters on your screen.

You already know that you can hover over a password in an item’s detail view to copy or reveal it. You’ll see the new large type option in that same menu, always within easy reach.

This feature is also great if you need to enter your Apple ID password on the Apple TV across the room or give guests access to your home Wi-Fi network.

Change the password of a secondary vault

Since your 1…Password (that never gets old around here) unlocks your primary vault and your secondary vaults, it’s very easy to create a secondary vault and never think about its password again. Until now, changing that secondary vault password meant basically recreating the vault.

We’ve made things much more convenient for you in 5.4: you can now change the secondary vault password at will. While you’re at it, don’t forget that it’s a good idea to save this password in your primary vault; since you don’t use it all the time, it’s easy to forget! If you’ve already done that, fantastic! Don’t forget to update that item when you change the secondary vault’s password. =)

A view from the top

Did you know that 1Password for Mac offers multiple layouts? The default is a three-column view, but there’s also a “top” layout option. If you’re a fan of the classic Mail.app layout, you’ll like this one. You can try it out by selecting the View > Item List Layout > Top menu option. We’ve made some improvements to this view in 5.4, all based on your feedback. Thanks for your help!

A new layer of security

We all rely on 1Password to keep our secrets secure. In the 5.4 update for 1Password for Mac, our developers have made 1Password securer than ever by adding a new secret agent to safeguard the communication between 1Password and your web browser.

Safari 9 in Yosemite and El Capitan includes important security updates that address the XARA vulnerability, so please update to the latest Safari and to El Capitan as soon as possible. Our 1Password update works hand in hand with Apple’s OS X security updates to ensure that cross-process communication between 1Password and the web browser in OS X remains secure and properly authenticated.

But wait, there’s more!

1Password 5.4 for Mac is available now as a free update if you already have a 1Password 5 for Mac license (or downloaded 1Password 5 from the Mac App Store). Choose the 1Password 5 > Check for Updates menu option, or grab the new version from our downloads page. If you are a Mac App Store customer, the update will download automatically or appear on the Updates tab in the App Store app, depending on your settings.

Been using 1P for over 4 years. This is probably not the sort of comment you were looking for but, not everyone who uses 1P is a young man or woman and for your older users, the use of gray text against a white background (which I gather is very hip these days, given the number of sites that chose to display in this manner) is not easy to read. Gentlemen, IMHO it’s the pits. It’s form over function: you are creating document to be read, so doesn’t it make sense to create it in an easy-to-read format? I solve this by using Reader in Safari.

in reply to the fill in places being grey….perhaps a setting in preferences that lets one darken if they wish. I work for Apple and recommend it every day. But have heard that comment before. Thanks for great product

Way to go Gerard! I too am an older user and am not yet up to speed on the original version. It was recommended to me by my local Mac shop but I found the manual to get it up and running almost non-existent. I know the problem is on my end. Just sayin,’ though…

Any idea when the Apple Store version will hit the streets? I’d like to go back to it for iCloud syncing, but have been having too much fun playing with the beta to just quit using the new features. ;)

could someone help me please? I bought the app to access my bank accounts from my iPhone and it does not work on my phone the way it does on the computer. I have read through the forums and created separate login pages and it still does not work without me having to manually enter the password. that’s really annoying when using a long password. Can someone help me or advise what I should do so that it works on my phone.

I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve been having trouble with 1Password, and I apologize sincerely for the delay in replying to you here.

While we do our best to ensure that 1Password is as similar as possible across all platforms, there will be some differences in how 1Password behaves, depending on which operating system you’re using. Some of these differences are due to the fact that we develop 1Password separately across each operating system, and we’re not always able to have every feature rolled out simultaneously. However, some key differences are due to the way that the operating system handles things. For example, the 1Password browser extension that you use on your Mac has a few extra powers that the 1Password app extension on iOS does not. If you provide us with a bit more detail on what you’re seeing on your iOS device vs. your computer, we’ll be better able to walk you through this.

The fix that we are implementing for the XARA vulnerability applies only to Safari. It’s not that Safari was more exposed than Chrome and Firefox: the XARA vulnerability applies to all browsers equally. Apple has been the first to implement a fix for this vulnerability however.

As all extensions live inside of the browser, every extension is dependent on the frameworks supplied by the browser. With Safari 9, Apple provided a way to ensure a secure channel between an extension and a verified process (very important!). Chrome and Firefox still rely on WebSockets for communication, and so we can’t yet make any changes to our extension there. Each browser will have to address the XARA vulnerability independently and they may choose a different approach to solve it. We will review all proposed solutions as soon as they become available so that everybody can enjoy the extra security that we can now provide for our Safari fans.

I hope this helps to answer your question, but feel free to email in to support+social@agilebits.com if you’d like any further clarification!

My computer was hacked yesterday, Macbook Air Yosemite 0S, big time, it has now been fully restored. I am thinking that now that I have to repopulate all my passwords, maybe this is the time to start 1P. I am a little shy after my hacking. Would this be the way to go?

I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve been having trouble with your computer! Getting hacked is never any fun. Of course I’m biased here, but I think that this would be a great time to get set up with 1Password. The beauty of 1Password is that it makes it simple to create more secure habits. 1Password makes it easy to fill in your passwords on websites, which means you no longer have to worry about being able to remember them … and that’s one of the biggest barriers to creating secure and unique passwords.

This has been a pretty popular feature request for a while now, and we’re happy to be able to introduce it! But you’re right, displaying your password in large type does present certain risks, and I’m glad that you’re being cautious when thinking about how and when to use it. :)

Nice feature, but, a little more control would be helpful. It opens in the middle of the screen, sometimes over top where your password needs to be keyed. When you click on the entry point requesting your password (one of those sites which will not allow a copy and paste or cmd ) it closes. Please add positioning ability and remain visible while I key it into an appropriate field. Thanks, Bob

Thank you for your suggestions and I will most definitely pass them along.

In the short-term, you can maintain access to your login information for copying and pasting by clicking the anchor button on the lower left corner on the item. This will open the item’s details in a separate window that floats on top of all your other windows. Handy for quickly copying and pasting a bunch of fields. The item details will be available until you click the red close button in the upper left corner of the window.

Once again, thank you. We truly appreciate customers like you who love us enough to tell us when there are places we can improve our already awesome product.

I encourage you to go check out our public beta of 1Password for Teams. 1Password for Teams introduces a web app that allows you to view all your vault items and in the near future it will allow full editing of your items as well. There are a few hiccups on Linux that we need to iron out in the current beta to allow Linux browsers to sign up correctly, but we’ll get there soon.

Longer term we are planning on expanding support even further and I think you’ll enjoy what we have in store.

Exceptionally useful application for which I have two recommendations: I highly encourage a new MenuBar Icon. Simply add some color so it’s easier to locate amidst the others. Item 2 is to simplify that acquisition of a password on the smartphone version. I have more than once given up seeking to ID, then copy/paste using my iPhone.

Thank you for sharing your recommendations for improving both our 1Password mini icon and our iOS app. I agree that the menu bar can get kind of cluttered. Have you tried using ⌘+\ to launch the mini so you don’t have to go hunting around for the icon?

Regarding the iPhone app, we are always working to improve the user experience and functionality of all of our apps. Are you having issues with 1Password when using apps or when using mobile Safari? If it is Safari, then I recommend that you enable the Safari extension and give that a try.

If your issue is with individual apps, then I would recommend that you contact the developers of your most heavily used/favorite apps and ask them to integrate the 1Password extension. It is an easy process for them and the request means the most when coming from a customer.

Once again, thank you for sharing your suggestions with us. We truly appreciate customers like you who love us enough to tell us when there are places we can improve our already awesome product.

Hello Eva and thanks for the reply. Your key combo is not my preference. The MenuBar is right there and very easy to locate. The icon though is White on Black and looks like the ‘INFO’ icon used by a million other apps. Simply use your standard White and Blue Icon and that problem is solved.

I rarely use Safari on my smart phone. Once you are 50 years old, reading text that small is not an option. With regards to other apps I get your points. 1Password is next to useless if not integrated. I’m afraid though it’s not my task to contact them, but your company’s yes? I will make a recommendation here and there as I often do, but such recommendations are always ignored and quite honestly are waste of time. Most apps have no incentive I suspect. Perhaps you ought to offer them your app for free as compensation for the ‘easy process’?

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I have already shared your thoughts on the icon on the menu bar. My suggestion was merely to make your life a bit easier at the moment.

Regarding reaching out to your favorite apps, I apologize if you read my response as suggestion that we were trying to put the burden on you. We have an ever growing list of apps that have 1Password integration right here. It has been our experience (although it does not sound like it has been yours) that companies are more responsive to their customers requests than to ours. A good number of apps that have added 1Password integration tell us that they have done so at the request of their customers.

I agree with John – colors please! If you don’t like colors, then make it a choice of our own. Like SugarSync: their MenuBar icon is black as default but in Preferences you can choose green – which is their app color. Of course I chose green. I hate those black and white icons that Apple seems to love so much and so many companies adopted. What happened to the beautiful blue Dropbox icon? And many others like that. When I look at the many icons in my MenuBar only two have colors: SugarSync (because I chose it!) and FlickerUploader. Giving me a hard time finding the right one.

When that is said, I’m a very satisfied 1P user! I’ve been hanging around since March 2011 (ver. 3) and I love it. Uses the Firefox Extension, or 1P Mini all the time. And of course I’ve used 1P on my iPhone for a long time. Now that Apple allowed Extensions in iOS it’s even more useful! And together with Touch ID it’s a breeze!

Thanks for your reply.
I am talking about the Vault logo and not an item logo.
I have just created a new Vault and was able to insert a different image but I did not find an option to edit of an existing vault one.